ASUS GL552JX Unboxing and First Impressions [Interactive]

There’s quite a plethora of gaming laptops nowadays. Today, brands have started embracing the fact that ‘gaming’, as business category and market, have quite a good following. Brands have started leveraging on facts that gaming is starting to overshadow the movie industry, and more and more people are spending on things that can allow them to entertain themselves through video games.

According to a data by NPD Group, the computer and video game industry sold 273 million units in 2009 leading to $10.5B revenue. As a company and brand, who wouldn’t want to be in an industry that’s undeniably thriving?

Last November 2015, ASUS announced the availability of new ROG (Republic of Gamers) laptops that range from PhP60,000 to over PhP150,000. These premium laptops were conceptualized and made with gamers in mind, thus the ROG branding. Just in case you’re not aware, ROG is ASUS’ sub brand that highlights and includes their range of devices, peripherals and accessories specifically made for gamers.

Its most affordable ROG Laptop, the ROG GL552JX, reached our headquarters a couple of days ago and we thought that we should give you our thoughts and impressions.

Below is an interactive unboxing video. There will be times that the video will be paused and automatically ask you if you wish to view details of our impressions. You may choose to read our impressions in-video or not. Click the play button on the video below to begin.

Overall Build

ASUS took the stealth fighter as its design peg for the ROG GL552JX. Its robust-looking and manly case connote aggressiveness and dominance over competition.

Its chassis closely resembles a stealth fighter. Typical ROG signature colors – red, gray and silver – are found on its two-toned display frame. The dark grey with textured interlacing pattern looks great but susceptible to fingerprints. The middle frame that houses the ASUS and ROG logos has a brushed-metallic feel and texture. Everything is made of plastic though, so as expected, there are flexes on the LED screen, which make the whole panel “twistable”.

15.6-inch Monitor

The laptop has a huge 15.6-inch Full HD IPS matte panel display. Its anti-glare qualities increases viewing angles up to 178-degrees. I’ve got a pair of ASUS VC239 monitors at home, and I find the quality of GL552JX’s monitor at par with my VC239s.

Backlit Keyboard

The ASUS ROG GL552’s backlit keyboard is probably the best laptop keyboard we’ve used in ages. It’s very comfortable to use, and felt very solid. There are almost zero flexes when keys are pressed, which I find amazing; and all keys are illuminated by an ROG-red backlight. It just looks and feels so aggressive, I would always to win when playing games. I mean, serious, look at how amazing it looks like

TouchPad

The laptop’s huge touchpad is compatible with multi-gestures. There are multiple flexes, which sometimes affect the efficiency of the touchpad. ASUS probably thought that touchpad isn’t the preferred input option for gamers.

Performance

The ASUS ROG GL552JX is the mid-spectrum of ASUS’ latest ROG devices. Even so, the laptop is powerful enough to play the games I play via Steam and Origin. Its 4th Gen Intel Core i7 Processor is capable enough to handle current and even next gen games. It is also powered by 8gb DDR3L 1600 MHz SDRAM plus an NVIDIA GeForce GTX950M. These components are mainly responsible for the raw power of the device, which makes me play games like Metal Gear Solid The Phantom Pain, ARK: Survival Evolved, H1Z1 and DayZ with little to zero issues. I will be posting gameplay videos when we release our full report.

Publishing and editing apps like Photoshop CC, Premiere Pro CC and Sony Vegas 13 work flawlessly on this device. In fact, one of the reasons why I got this laptop is for me to easily and swiftly produce videos on the go.

During the 1st 3 days of my usage, I encountered 4 blue screen crashes, which are mainly attributed to storage and display issues. I’m still currently digging deeper on to the crash report to understand what directly caused the crashes.

Available Ports and DVD

Available Ports/Interface

1 x Microphone-in/Headphone-out jack

1 x VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external monitor

2 x USB 3.0 port(s)

1 x USB 2.0 port(s)

1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert

1 x HDMI

1X AC adapter plug

The laptop has quite a handful of ports available. The inclusion of both VGA port and HDMI is amazing and going to be pretty useful if I wish to use 2-3 screens.

Also, its 3 USB ports are going to be very handy for peripherals that I wish to attach to the device. Unfortunately, the device does not have an available Thunderbolt interface, which may be useful to pimp up the performance and capability of the laptop.

The availability of Multi-DVD reader/writer is also excellent. While most gamers are used to downloading games online, game retailers like Datablitz are still selling games in DVD format (which are still surprisingly cheaper than Steam).

Price and Availability

The ROG GL552JX is now available for PhP59,960 at ASUS authorized resellers nationwide.

Stay Tuned

We will cover more bases when we release our full review soon. Meanwhile, let us know if you have any comments by typing it in the comments section below.

Leave a comment

Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of GadgetPilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.